


The Moon Also Rises

by Wildcard



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, Old Lore, fleeing tumblr dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16862368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildcard/pseuds/Wildcard
Summary: Written back before the lore change, when Diana was a heretic Lunari worshipper that slaughtered the Solari elders in self-defense and Leona was the one who faced her down.





	The Moon Also Rises

“I told you that you would pay for your heresy, Diana,” Leona said as she stood before her now-humbled enemy. In her full formal armor, she blazed with the glory of the sun but Diana still sneered at her as if she were nothing.

“What heresy? That the sun burns you to blindness when you look upon overlong but the moon offers you wisdom? I spoke only the truth. That the ignorant thralls still fear the night is their flaw, not mine.”

Even captured and on her knees, Diana’s iris-less eyes still shone with bitter defiance. Her hands were bound behind her back and the woman’s long hair had been cropped short, cut unevenly in jagged locks fell over her bandaged forehead. The elders had tried to burn the mark of the moon off Diana’s skin but when that had failed, they had cut at it instead, peeling off the top layer of skin only to find that even the bloody flesh underneath shone with the moon’s mark.

They’d chosen to bandage it instead so that the gathered crowd would not have to look upon such a sacrilegious marking. Everyone would see how heretics died. Diana would pay for the slaughter of the Solari elders - and everyone else who had chosen to die rather than relinquish their faith when she’d given them that choice.

Her execution had to be public. It was the only way for the people to know they were safe again.

And yet some part of Leona regretted that it had to be by fire. 

She had faced Annie and Shyvana too often on the fields of the League. She knew how fire ate through flesh and bone, how it killed slowly and agonizingly. If it had been up to her, she would have taken Diana’s head off with her sword but the elders had insisted that for disrespecting the sun, Diana should be sacrificed to it.

Leona shook off the thought that such a death was too harsh. This was no time to take pity on her enemy.

“You are the thrall, Diana, blinded to the sun’s beauty by dark lies. You will spread them no further!” Leona stepped away from the platform and the pile of sticks heaped around Diana’s bare feet. Dressed only in a plain white shift, she hardly looked the fearsome warrior that Leona was so used to facing.

Diana’s lips moved as the priests drizzled oil on the pyre; on the wind, as clear as if she’d whispered them into Leona’s ear, Diana’s words arrived.

“Cruel moon, bring the end.”

Her usually harsh voice was soft, almost reverent. Did she fear death by fire so much? Leona blinked at the brightness of the flames rising around Diana and how even now, the grey-skinned woman tilted her face upwards and stared defiantly at the sun. A sudden smile spread over her lips, sharp as the blade of her scythe as the light around them dimmed.

Leona looked up; bit by bit, the sun was vanishing. An eclipse? Now?! But the astronomers hadn’t predicted one–

She’d only looked away for a moment but that was enough. As the sun had faded, so had the powers of the Solari and Leona herself. Diana stood freed, clutching a scythe of shimmering silver light, clad in falls of moonlight as solid as silk. Around her lay the bodies of the elders and the audience.

Leona flashed forwards, bringing her own sword up to attack but the pale cascade of orbs around Diana protected her, exploding around the two of them and destroying Leona’s vision. Before she could blink her eyes clear, Diana knocked her down, straddling her chest with the tip of the scythe against Leona’s throat.

The single breath that Leona drew made the scythe dig deeper into her throat, cutting a nick just deep enough for Leona to feel the wetness of her own blood welling up.

“The truth always wins in the end,” Diana said and her eyes burnt with the white blaze of moonlight as she pressed the scythe in deeper. “The dawn will never rise again.”

Leona didn’t even have time to resign herself to her death before she heard the familiar war cry of Pantheon and saw sudden calculation flash across Diana’s eyes. Diana could kill her but she was wounded too - she would not be able to take Pantheon in battle, not when Pantheon was unaffected by the sun’s disappearance. But if Diana escaped, she would have to let Leona live…

Leona was only one of the many Solari even if she was the Sun’s Chosen. Diana was the moon’s only true follower. If she died, the worship of the moon would die with her.

By the time Pantheon reached her, Leona was already on her feet, wiping at her bloodied throat and staring at the corpses that surrounded her. She could feel the moon’s crescent carved into her skin and the steady seeping trail of blood that trickled down under her armor.

“What happened?” Pantheon asked.

“Diana,” Leona growled. “Now give me a healing potion.”

She would not wear her rival’s mark a moment longer than she had to.


End file.
